While each student's path through Tufts is marked with different activities and different courses of study, the goal of almost every graduate is the same: success on the professional level.
According to a survey taken by Tufts' Institutional Research before last year's seniors graduated, 22 percent of students knew they would go on to graduate school, while 52.6 percent would pursue full-time employment. Of the seniors looking for jobs, approximately 40 percent had received an offer by graduation, while the rest were searching or yet to begin the job search process.
Tufts Career Services offers a number of services to aid students in their job-hunting experience. In addition to hosting the standard job fairs and workshops, Career Services counsels students and offers internship listings, resume preparation, and interviewing tips.
Despite Career Services' efforts however, some current seniors and alum feel that these efforts are not enough in and of themselves. "Career services not only did not help me, but made finding a job harder by overwhelming me with useless resources," said Aaron Orenstein (LA '04), who is now a business analyst at a marketing consulting firm.
Others feel that Career Services and the Alumni Network do not effectively offer students enough connections. Michael Newman (LA'03) was frustrated with the networking process when he was at Tufts as an engineering student.
"I found that Career Services wasn't much help outside the Boston and Massachusetts area," Newman said. "I attended a Tufts Networking Night in Manhattan over one Christmas break and it seemed to be a pretty poor turnout of career people. It left a bad taste in my mouth that in a city as big as New York, so few Tufts alumni were there to participate.
While Martindale feels that Career Services' interview, application and resum?© workshops are important and useful, she also agrees that obtaining connections is the most important. "Connections are needed, and getting a foot in the door is the most important thing," says Martindale.
Director of Career Services Jean Papalia said that "the purpose of the network is to ask alumni for information and advice - not for a job." Also, Papalia said that the network has been completely revamped within the last two years, and is therefore in its growing stages.
Currently, approximately 5,000 alumni participate in the network, many more than the 1,300 involved only a few years ago.
Despite criticism, there are indeed alumni who are happy to help Tufts students. According to Papalia, one alum at a recent engineering panel claimed he got a call from an interested student every two weeks or so, and is happy to answer questions.
Tufts graduates also generally benefit from the University's good name. Although definite proof is hard to obtain, certain statistics and a general feedback from employers indicates that Tufts graduates have a good reputation in many industries.
"Tufts definitely has good name recognition and telling an employer you went to Tufts is well-received on its own," said Liza Martindale, an English major (LA '03) who is now working for a public relations firm in New York City.
Tufts' reputation varies from industry to industry, however. "In certain fields, such as Public Relations, Tufts has a very good reputation," Celyn Takeda (LA '04) said. "But in a field like finance, Tufts is not as well-recognized and not much job recruiting comes from Tufts." Takeda now works at Barkley's Capital in New York City.
Gidon Fischer (LA '04) agrees. "No one on Wall Street knows about Tufts because Tufts does such a poor job of attracting these big firms and bringing them to tufts to recruit," the marketing consultant said.
"Tufts puts a person in a great position to succeed once they get those connections, but they are a necessity," said Takeda.
Career Services says that the job-search process should ideally not be left to the last minute, emphasizing the need for preparation. Students should pursue internships, winterships, or work study programs before graduation to get their names out into the job market.
Last year, there was a slight increase of 13.1 percent more college graduates hired by employees in 2004 than in 2003, according to Jobweb.com. However, graduate hiring always depends on the economy and the overall job market, but the growing trend seems to be towards the recruitment of younger job seekers.
According to Papalia, the engineering, banking and finance, and education were the top three fields among the Class of 2004, with 15.6 percent, 14.1 percent and 11.5 percent of the class entering those fields respectively.
Employers seek students with good communication skills, both written and verbal, honesty, interpersonal skills and worth ethics, said Papalia. Analytical skills and computer literacy were towards the bottom of the top ten list.
Career Services has programs or panels happening multiple times a week. For more information, visit the Career Services homepage (http://careers.tufts.edu
